


An Update on the Zombie Situation

by alchemise



Category: Arrow (TV 2012), Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Crisis on Infinite Earths AU, Gen, Implied Laurel/Kara, Pre-Femslash, Survival Horror, Zombie Apocalypse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-29
Updated: 2020-07-29
Packaged: 2021-03-04 17:47:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,814
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25390366
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alchemise/pseuds/alchemise
Summary: They had no reason to make noise. Because they had no reason. No communication, no emotion, no nothing. Just relentless hunger.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 2
Collections: Multifandom Horror Exchange (2020)





	An Update on the Zombie Situation

**Author's Note:**

  * For [VampirePaladin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/VampirePaladin/gifts).



_Dinah,_

_I've reached eastern Wyoming. It's fucking empty. Zombies everywhere. Supergirl just saved my ass (which you probably know since she should've brought you this note)._

_I've got a lead. Found a newspaper here that said they were having problems with the dead on June 8th. That's earlier than everywhere else I've heard. Maybe getting close to the source?_

_I hope Star City's still standing._

_LL_

* * *

**1\. Nighttime**

* * *

Things were worse at night. It wasn't like the zombies were more active then or anything, because it wasn't like they needed sleep. But people did, living people anyway. Even she needed sleep sometimes. So that was already hard enough: staying alert and focused through the night.

But more than tiredness was the fact that they were so fucking quiet.

They had no reason to make noise. Because they had no reason. No communication, no emotion, no nothing. Just relentless hunger.

At night, they could sneak up on you without you ever even noticing, until it was too late. Then tear you apart, in an apparently vain attempt to slake their need. Until you were gone. And then, you were one of them, your life replaced with the same hunger.

Laurel hated the nighttime now.

* * *

**2\. The Zombie Situation**

* * *

When she was feeling particularly uncharitable, she blamed Oliver.

He died to save them, and it worked. All the worlds restored (except for a few that got merged together, oops); loved ones brought back to life; Star City crime free. When all was said and done, things had looked pretty good. Laurel had even been ready to travel to Earth-2 and see what her home had become in this brave new multiverse.

Then the zombies appeared. Somehow Oliver hadn't prevented that.

All the zombie media in the world hadn't prepared people for the horror of it. Mostly because it was so wrong. There was no monstrous bite, no rage disease, no infection at all that could spread among people. There was no fear of catching it or knowing you'd gradually turn into one of them. If someone did turn into one of them, they'd never even know it.

Because they'd be dead too.

Other people found that part the most horrifying. Whenever a loved one died, they immediately became a threat. But also all the already dead: all of one's ancestors were now a danger to the living. Sentimentality for the dead had no place in society now. There was no more preparing dead bodies for memorials then burying them in the ground. The dead needed to be gotten rid of immediately now. Only dead humans, though. No undead doggies running around so far.

Laurel didn't find any of this aspect of the apocalypse—what the zombies actually were—very terrifying. She didn't fear them at all. She just hated what they were doing to the world.

The first zombies had reached Star City on June 30th. There had been rumors from other cities before then, but it had spread slowly at first. It had seemed too unbelievable to actually be real. People explained it away as gangs or metahumans or even aliens, again. It was also slow because it was hard to pass on whatever it was between the dead—it wasn't like they hung out together. Until it apparently went airborne, at least. And then, underground.

On July 5th, the undead rose from their graves throughout Star City. A few other places had already reported the phenomenon, and it had seemed like a sick, macabre joke. The zombies had already risen from the morgues, but the earth itself had seemed safe, until it wasn't.

Then they were just everywhere. All dead humans were now undead.

Thankfully, it wasn't like they were all that hard to kill. Laurel had fought many things that posed a far greater challenge. It was just that they didn't stop. Cut off an arm, a leg, even a head, they just kept going. Flesh reanimated, endlessly.

Fire worked well. So did breaking every bone in their bodies. Laurel preferred the latter.

She just got used to the piles of twitching decomposing flesh after a while.

* * *

**3\. Cheyenne**

* * *

Laurel thought that she might actually be in trouble this time. She'd been heading east, across Wyoming. She'd given up on cars a few days back. The roads had become impassable with stopped vehicles: their windows smashed in or doors ripped off, metal shredded with bare hands as the occupants had been pulled out and then torn apart themselves, bodies consumed until they died and then turned into the same as their attackers. She hadn't run into a living person in two days, and that last one she'd only seen from a distance on an ATV in the hills, trying to outrun death. If they reached a city, they might be safe. Most cities—the surviving ones, anyway—had quickly thrown up walls that they tossed their dead out of when it became obvious they had too many to burn. Some were even succeeding at keeping the undead at bay. She wished the traveler luck. They were likely to need it.

But now she was hoping there was enough luck left for her, too.

The bastards had her cornered. She'd taken a wrong turn down a back alleyway in the middle of fucking Cheyenne, Wyoming, only to find herself up against a wall.

Laurel could hear them coming, slowly but surely. Drawn by all the _life_ shining inside her. Or, more likely, the fact that even she couldn't move completely silently. She knew she smelled plenty alive, too.

There was only one option, and it was one she hated to use, because it was only going to make things worse. But it might buy her some time.

As the first few rounded the corner and approached her, she waited, for just a minute. She wanted to get as many of them as she could.

More were filling into the alley now, a good-sized group of them. It looked like eight or ten. They were shambling, as was expected with zombies, but it was due to the state of their bodies, not some inherent feature of the undead. These had clearly died by other zombies, their bodies mutilated, chunks torn out and probably consumed. There were holes in them, missing limbs, skin and bits of clothing flapping loose. And they stank. Of rotting flesh and something horribly wrong and unnatural.

When they were within a few feet of her, groping forward with their arms outstretched and mouths open in anticipation, she screamed as loud as she could.

It was maybe the cruelest or stupidest irony of this apocalypse that her special, magic, superhero ability was the thing that made her especially vulnerable. So much power that she'd finally worked so hard at using for good, and now, every time she screamed, she'd draw in every zombie for miles around. There were few human noises anymore, especially not out here in the middle of nowhere, that her cry was the promising sound of potential food.

At least it did a pretty bang up job of dispersing the undead in front of her.

The zombies flew everywhere. She didn't hold back with them, so she was pretty confident there were at least a few broken bones in the bunch. That should slow them down.

Laurel took off sprinting through where the horde had been a moment ago. A few more were at the mouth of the alley. She knew there would have been curiosity on their faces if they were capable of feeling emotions. Instead they were blank.

She screamed again. She had nothing to lose.

She ran through the city, seeing more zombies dotted here and there as she went. None got so close that she needed to fight them off just yet, but it was inevitable. Eventually they'd catch up with her. Unless she could find someplace safe.

Then she saw it, just the answer she'd been looking for. A water tower in the distance. Zombies weren't all that great at ladders. It would buy her a chance to catch her breath and maybe time to come up with a plan.

An arm reached out as she turned a corner, grasping at her shirt. She battered at it with one of her sticks, pushing the zombie away from her. Normally, she'd stop to smash it in decommission, but for now, she ran.

She reached the water tower just in time, a crowd of zombies not far behind. What they lacked in speed, they made up for in sheer numbers. Laurel leapt up the ladder on the side, scaling it as quickly as she could. She didn't stop until she was at the very top. Looking over the edge, she saw a dozen zombies trying to work their way up. They were mostly failing, falling back to the ground after only a few rungs. A few were able to make it higher, though. Those in better condition, with all their parts and some undead muscle coordination, it seemed.

She knew she could hold off any that managed to reach the top. It would be easy enough to knock them back off, and would have the added benefit of probably breaking them to the point where they wouldn't make it back up again. But she also knew she couldn't stay on top of a water tower forever. She had few supplies, and it was a damn water tower. Not the most practical of shelters. Eventually she'd have to fight her way down. For now, at least, though, she could take a break.

Laurel scanned the horizon in all directions. She spotted a few more zombies joining the masses, drawn by her scream. There wasn't much else to see. A rather lovely park in front of her, for what that was worth. Other than that, it was an empty Cheyenne, buildings and cars abandoned. A dog crossed a street in the distance. The zombies didn't seem to have a taste for animals and left them alone. There was some small saving grace about that.

She spent the night on the water tower. It was mostly quiet, other than the sound of zombies still trying to climb the side and regularly falling off. They never learned. That was actually one of the most horrifying things about them. They'd do the same thing over and over again, until they couldn't. Nothing else would stop them. They didn't get bored or tired, and the hunger that consumed them never seemed to actually affect them detrimentally.

Laurel, however, could feel boredom. It was early the next morning, and she was tired of the water tower. She was just thinking up the best strategy to get herself back on the ground and, preferably, not surrounded by zombies, when she heard _something_. It was like wind, movement in the air, and it was approaching her.

Kara Danvers came bursting out of the sky, flying straight toward her. Laurel had never been so happy to see her. At the last moment, Kara veered, circling the tower. Then she let loose with her heat vision. Laurel shrieked in delight as the zombies burst into flames, one after the other. Soon they were nothing more than a charred, pulsating mass on the ground. It was an impressive sight.

Laurel licked her lips as Kara landed on the tower beside her and said, "Hi."

Kara radiated joy, as always. Laurel didn't quite know how that was possible in the middle of a zombie apocalypse, but she wasn't about to question it. "I am so glad you're okay! Star Labs was able to rig up some kind of metahuman power detector. It heard your cry, and we figured it couldn't be good."

Laurel filed that news away for later. It was always nice when Star Labs did something useful. "So you decided to come and rescue me."

It wasn't that Kara blushed, exactly, but she did look a bit called out. She quickly recovered, though. "Well, I figured I was the best choice. I could get here quick. Are you alright?"

Laurel realized she forgotten about the predicament she'd been in. Kara was distracting that way. "Yeah, I'm good. Now, anyway."

"Good." Kara looked like she wanted to say more but then seemed to stop herself. "I should probably go. I hate being away from the city for long. Guarding the walls has kind of become a full-time job, and then some. But I'm really glad you're okay."

Laurel waited for Kara to stop and then decided to throw in an offer. "You could come with me, you know."

Kara seemed to seriously consider it for a moment. "And what? You draw them in, I take them down?"

Laurel smiled, barring her teeth. The smile was sincere. But then, so were the teeth. "Yes."

Laurel thought she saw a flicker of temptation and bit of a grin on Kara for just a second, but then Kara sighed. "I can't leave National City. They need me. Kind of all the time right now."

Laurel wanted to protest but thought of her own guilt after watching her Earth be destroyed. She couldn’t begrudge Kara wanting to protect her home, as much as she would have preferred a companion (and not just any companion, if she was being honest, but Kara specifically). She tried not to sound disappointed and said, "Alright. At least bring an update back to Star City for me?"

"Of course." Kara once again looked focused on the mission, which Laurel agreed there was no other option these days. Not if they had any chance of surviving.

Laurel grabbed her pen and paper. She expected to have more concrete news in a few days or weeks but figured giving Dinah a little bit of hope couldn't hurt any. After all, the damn Paragon of Hope was going to be the one delivering it.

* * *

**4\. Letters**

* * *

_Dinah,_

_Sometimes this hero thing sucks. But then, I'm sure you knew that already._

_LL_

*****

_Dinah,_

_What if I was wrong to leave my Earth, whatever it's like now, to try and save your stupid one? What if this shit has reached there too? Have any of you even bothered to check?_

_~~Black Siren~~ kidding, sort of – LL_

*****

_Dinah,_

_One of them got me pretty good. Could really use Supergirl to fly down out of the sky right about now._

_Tell Quentin… something. I'm sure you'll figure it out._

_Laurel_

*****

_Dinah,_

_Found some antibiotics. Fucking miracle they weren't scavenged yet. Feeling better._

_LL_

*****

Sometimes Laurel was really grateful that she couldn't actually send all the notes she wrote for Dinah. She hated feeling sorry for herself but figured better she got it out on a piece of paper that no one was ever going to read than wallow in it. Wallowing would probably get her killed.

Other times, though, she wished the damn post office still worked, or the cell network. Or, even better, that Kara really would come flying out of the sky to her, ready to deliver whatever news she had for them. And then just stay and chat for a while. It was frustrating as hell to gather intel she couldn't share with those who might be able to do something with it, and, as much as she hated to admit it, she was also pretty lonely.

*****

_Dinah,_

_I found something today. I don't know what it means yet. This bunch of papers next to a fucking horror scene. I think someone must have killed themselves, in a gory enough way that it worked for good._

_The papers are from some lab, a company trying to cure cancer or some shit. I don't know what half of this means, but I've got a hunch—a bad one. Maybe you all can make more sense of them, if you ever get this message._

_There's an address, in Iowa. I'm heading there now. I'm leaving everything next to a big fucking sign for some Superwhoever flying overhead to see. I hope to hell you're reading this._

_LL_

*****

Laurel finished spray-painting the word "KRYPTON" on the ground. It was on an airport runway, no chance of some tree falling on it and covering the word. She left the papers and note for Dinah in a sturdy metal box in the middle of a bullseye she'd also painted on the ground. She wasn't taking any chances.

Maybe it was nothing. Maybe she'd seen too many evil scientist movies as a kid. But she knew she had to be close to ground zero. There weren't even reports of zombies in the local newspapers anymore. She was pretty sure everyone had died before they'd gotten a chance to print them.

She figured it was about a day hike to the lab and then maybe, finally, some answers.

* * *

**5\. The Lab**

* * *

The lab was, of course, nearly pitch black inside. There were windows along the outside, here and there, but it looked like most of the interesting work was done in interior rooms. She knew enough about things like "clean rooms" that she wasn't surprised.

Laurel had a small flashlight but was mostly relying on her years of experience operating at night to get her by. Light wasn't a huge attractant for the undead—she figured they lacked the intelligence to understand what it meant—but she wanted to avoid anything that might ping their attention. Thankfully, she hadn't seen any sign of anything living or dead so far.

Yet she couldn't shake the feeling that she was being watched.

The feeling kept with her, especially once she moved downstairs to the lab's lower level. She really hadn't wanted to go into the basement but hadn't had any luck finding anything meaningful on the two above-ground floors. She'd rifled through all the paperwork she could find, but it was mostly business operations. Even the actual science that had been done there looked mundane. As far as she was concerned, it figured: shady work belonged in the dark.

So the basement it was.

She glided down the stairs as smoothly and noiselessly as she could manage. The hairs on the back of her neck seemed to stand up even straighter the further down she went. There was just a hint of light in the stairwell, from doors she'd propped open on the upper levels.

But as she eased open the basement door, Laurel saw only blackness. She switched on the flashlight, keeping it pointed toward the floor, and entered the basement. There was a hallway lined with doors. She couldn't see what was at the end or even how far it went.

With a muffled sigh at just how ominous the entire thing seemed, she opened the first door.

She ended up being down there for hours, meticulously combing through lab after office after locker room. Bathrooms, too, just in case. She felt increasingly desperate as she went. If there were no answers in this building, she had no clue where to go next. The entire time, the sense of being watched continued, like someone or something was just a few feet behind her at all times but staying out of reach. Laurel forced herself to stay calm, but it was trying her last fucking nerve.

She finally found what she was looking for in a trash can in some random-looking office. A crumpled inter-office memo, from some jackass who was way too excited about a new development at a sister lab in Alabama. The scientists had clearly been aware of the little zombie problem they'd created, but the writer only sounded disappointed by the fact that the zombies were mindless. Jackass was going on about the potential of undead intelligence and what it might mean for the long-term effects of what he called "Serum 14-3:" _If the undead can be still us, still human, then we've fucking done it! That's the answer to everything!_

Laurel was appalled. Some madman (or an entire lab of them) had decided to move on from trying to cure cancer and inadvertently causing the end of the world via zombies to solving death itself, with whatever repercussions that might bring.

Laurel knew she needed more than just this scrap of paper, which its recipient hadn't even thought important enough to keep. She figured that if something like that could end up in the trash, then there had to be more details elsewhere. She decided if she really was being watched, then it didn't matter what kind of noise she made. Laurel tore open the computer in the room to take out its hard drive.

Just as she was stuffing it in her bag, along with all the other papers lying on the desk and in the trash, her stalker showed itself. Or rather, himself? She didn't even know what to think of the being before her. It was undead but stared at her with intelligent eyes. Eyes filled with malice and resentment. She didn't entirely know why.

The creature lunged across the room at her, just as she was expecting it to. She dropped the flashlight onto the floor. It cast just enough light that she could aim blows with her sticks at the zombie's vulnerable joints.

Its nails scoured one of her arms, leaving long bloody streaks of ripped flesh. She didn't make a sound in response. Instead, she used their proximity to hook a leg behind one of its knees and threw it to the floor. She struck at its knees and hips, hearing at least one good crack. That would slow it down.

Laurel backed away to catch her breath and assess whether she needed to cause more damage to stop it from pursuing her.

The zombie looked at her. She could swear she saw it plotting.

Then it forced a great gulp of air into its dead lungs and pushed it out in a loud screech.

Apparently, it knew how to call for help.

She smashed a stick into its jaw to stop the noise and grabbed her flashlight. As she ran into the hallway, she could hear scurrying shuffles, as multiple sets of undead feet converged on her location. She wasn't even sure where they could have been coming from, just that there must have been a lot of them.

She knew this wasn't going to be easy, but her friends—the whole world, really—had to know what was coming, that was what mattered. Losing down there was not an option. She was the only one who could warn them of the danger of this new kind of undead that was out there somewhere, with the hope that they could use this knowledge to somehow fix the whole damn thing. She would survive because the world needed her to. She had to be a hero once more.

Laurel gripped her sticks harder and got ready to scream.


End file.
